Good afternoon, everybody. I just met again with my National Security
Council on the campaign to destroy ISIL. I want to thank Secretary
Carter and Chairman Dunford -- who just returned from meetings with our
coalition partners in the Middle East -- for hosting us and for their
continued leadership of our men and women in uniform.

I last updated the American people on our campaign in June, shortly
after the horrifying attack in Orlando. In the weeks since, we’ve
continued to be relentless in our fight against ISIL -- and on the
ground in Syria and Iraq, ISIL continues to lose territory. Tragically,
however, we have also seen that ISIL still has the ability to direct and
inspire attacks. So we've seen terrible bombings in Iraq and in Jordan,
in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Afghanistan; attacks on an Istanbul
airport, a restaurant in Bangladesh, Bastille Day celebrations and a
church in France, and a music festival in Germany. In fact, the decline
of ISIL in Syria and Iraq appears to be causing it to shift to tactics
that we've seen before -- an even greater emphasis on encouraging
high-profile terrorist attacks, including in the United States.

As always, our military, diplomatic, intelligence, homeland security and
law enforcement professionals are working around the clock -- with other
countries and with communities here at home -- to share information and
prevent such attacks. And over the years, they’ve prevented many. But
as we’ve seen, it is still very difficult to detect and prevent lone
actors or small cells of terrorists who are determined to kill the
innocent and are willing to die. And that’s why, as we discussed today,
we’re going to keep going after ISIL aggressively across every front of
this campaign.

Our air campaign continues to hammer ISIL targets. More than 14,000
strikes so far. More than 100,000 sorties --including those hitting the
ISIL core in Raqqa and in Mosul. And in stark contrast to ISIL -- which
uses civilians as human shields -- America’s armed forces will continue
to do everything in our power to avoid civilian casualties. With our
extraordinary technology, we’re conducting the most precise air campaign
in history. After all, it is the innocent civilians of Syria and Iraq
who are suffering the most and who need to be saved from ISIL’s terror.
And so when there are allegations of civilian casualties, we take them
very seriously. We work to find the facts, to be transparent, and to
hold ourselves accountable for doing better in the future.

We continue to take out senior ISIL leaders and commanders. This
includes ISIL’s deputy minister of war, Basim Muhammad al-Bajari; a top
commander in Mosul, Hatim Talib al-Hamdani; and, in yet another
significant loss for ISIL, its minister of war, Umar al-Shishani. None
of ISIL’s leaders are safe -- and we are going to keep going after them.

On the ground in Iraq, local forces keep pushing ISIL back. In a major
success, Iraqi forces, with coalition support, finally liberated
Fallujah. Now they’re clearing ISIL fighters from more areas up the
Euphrates Valley, and Iraqi forces retook the strategic airbase at
Qayyarah -- just 40 miles from Mosul, now the last major ISIL stronghold
in Iraq. Given this success, the additional 560 U.S. support personnel
that I ordered to Iraq last month will help turn this base into a
logistical hub and launch pad for Iraqi forces as they push into Mosul.

Meanwhile, in Syria, a coalition of local forces -- backed by our
Special Operations Forces and airstrikes -- continues to take the fight
to ISIL as well. The coalition is fighting its way into the town of
Manbij -- a gateway for ISIL fighters coming in and terrorists heading
out to attack Europe, which is why ISIL is fighting hard to hold it. As
ISIL is beaten back, we’re gaining vast amounts of intelligence --
thousands of documents, thumb drives, digital files -- which we will use
to keep destroying ISIL’s networks and stop foreign fighters. We also
continue to intensify our efforts against al Qaida in Syria, which -- no
matter what name it calls itself -- cannot be allowed to maintain a safe
haven to train and plot attacks against us.

I do want to step back and note the broader progress that has been made
in this campaign so far. Two years ago, ISIL was racing across Iraq, to
the outskirts of Baghdad itself, and, to many observers, ISIL looked
invincible. Since then, in Iraq, ISIL has lost at the Mosul Dam, at
Tikrit, at Baiji, at Sinjar, at Ramadi, at Hit, at Rutbah and now
Fallujah. In Syria, ISIL has lost at Kobani and Tal Abyad and the
Tishrin Dam and al-Shaddadi. ISIL has lost territory across vast
stretches of the border with Turkey and almost all major transit routes
into Raqqa. And in both Iraq and Syria, ISIL has not been able to
reclaim any significant territory that they have lost.

So I want to repeat -- ISIL has not had a major successful offensive
operation in either Syria or Iraq in a full year. Even ISIL’s leaders
know they’re going to keep losing. In their message to followers,
they’re increasingly acknowledging that they may lose Mosul and Raqqa.
And ISIL is right, they will lose them. And we’ll keep hitting them
and pushing them back and driving them out until they do. In other
words, ISIL turns out not to be invincible -- they’re, in fact,
inevitably, going to be defeated.

But we do recognize at the same time that the situation is complex. And
this cannot be solved by military force alone. That's why, last month,
the United States and countries around the world pledged more than $2
billion in new funds to help Iraqis stabilize and rebuild their
communities. It’s why we’re working with Iraq so that the military
campaign to liberate Mosul is matched with humanitarian and political
efforts to protect civilians and promote inclusive governance and
development so ISIL cannot return by exploiting divisions or new
grievances.

In Syria, as I’ve repeatedly said, defeating ISIL and al Qaeda requires
an end to the civil war and the Assad regime’s brutality against the
Syrian people, which pushes people into the arms of extremists. The
regime and its allies continue to violate the Cessation of Hostilities,
including with vicious attacks on defenseless civilians, medieval sieges
against cities like Aleppo, and blocking food from reaching families
that are starving. It is deplorable. And the depravity of the Syrian
regime has rightly earned the condemnation of the world.

Russia's direct involvement in these actions over the last several weeks
raises very serious questions about their commitment to pulling the
situation back from the brink. The U.S. remains prepared to work with
Russia to try to reduce the violence and strengthen our efforts against
ISIL and al Qaeda in Syria. But so far, Russia has failed to take the
necessary steps. Given the deteriorating situation, it is time for
Russia to show that it is serious about pursuing these objectives.

Beyond Syria and Iraq, we’ll keep working with allies and partners to go
after ISIL wherever it tries to spread. At the request of Libya’s
Government of National Accord, we are conducting strikes in support of
government-aligned forces as they fight to retake Sirte from ISIL, and
we will continue to support the government’s efforts to secure their
country.

In Afghanistan, one of the reasons that I decided to largely maintain
our current force posture was so that we could keep eliminating ISIL’s
presence there -- and we delivered another blow last month when we took
out a top ISIL leader in Afghanistan, Umar Khalifa.

Finally, it should be clear by now -- and no one knows this better than
our military leaders -- that even as we need to crush ISIL on the
battlefield, their military defeat will not be enough. So long as their
twisted ideology persists and drives people to violence, then groups
like ISIL will keep emerging and the international community will
continue to be at risk in getting sucked into the kind of global
whack-a-mole where we’re always reacting to the latest threat or lone
actor. That’s why we’re also working to counter violent extremism more
broadly -- including the social, economic and political factors that
help fuel groups like ISIL and al Qaeda in the first place.

Nothing will do more to discredit ISIL and its phony claims to being a
caliphate than when it loses its base in Raqqa and in Mosul. And we're
going to keep working with partners -- including Muslim countries and
communities -- especially online -- to expose ISIL for what they are:
murderers who kill innocent people, including Muslim families and
children as they break their Ramadan fast, and who set off bombs in
Medina near the Prophet’s Mosque, one of the holiest sites in Islam.

Moreover, we refuse to let terrorists and voices of division undermine
the unity and the values of diversity and pluralism that keep our nation
strong. One of the reasons that America’s armed forces are the best in
the world is because we draw on the skills and the talents of all of our
citizens, from all backgrounds and faiths, including patriotic Muslim
Americans who risk and give their lives for our freedom. And I think
the entire world was inspired this past Sunday, when Muslims across
France joined their Catholic neighbors at Mass and, in a moving display
of solidarity, prayed together. The greeting they extended to each
other has to be the message we echo in all of our countries and all of
our communities -- peace be with you, and also with you.

Now, before I take some questions, I also want to say a few words on
another topic. As our public health experts have been warning for some
time, we are now seeing the first locally transmitted cases of the Zika
virus by mosquitoes in the continental United States. This was
predicted and predictable. So far, we've seen 15 cases in the Miami
area. We're taking this extremely seriously. Our CDC experts are on
the ground working shoulder-to-shoulder with Florida health authorities.
There’s a very aggressive effort underway to control mosquitoes there.
And pregnant women have been urged to stay away from the particular
neighborhood that we’re focused on. We’ll keep working as one team --
federal, state and local -- to try to slow and limit the spread of the
virus.

I do want to be very clear, though, our public health experts do not
expect to see the kind of widespread outbreaks of Zika here that we’ve
seen in Brazil or in Puerto Rico. The kind of mosquitoes that are most
likely to carry Zika are limited to certain regions of our country. But
we cannot be complacent because we do expect to see more Zika cases.
And even though the symptoms for most people are mild -- many may never
even know that they have it -- we’ve seen that the complications for
pregnant women and their babies can be severe. So I, again, want to
encourage every American to learn what they can do to help stop Zika by
going to CDC.gov.

In addition, Congress needs to do its job. Fighting Zika costs money.
Helping Puerto Rico deal with its Zika crisis costs money. Research
into new vaccines -- and, by the way, NIH just announced the first
clinical trials in humans -- that costs money. And that’s why my
administration proposed an urgent request for more funding back in
February. Not only did the Republican-led Congress not pass our request
-- they worked to cut it. And then they left for summer recess without
passing any new funds for the fight against Zika.

Meanwhile, our experts at the NIH and CDC -- the folks on the frontlines
-- have been doing their best and making do by moving funds from other
areas. But now the money that we need to fight Zika is rapidly running
out. The situation is getting critical. For instance, without
sufficient funding, NIH critical trials -- clinical trials and the
possibilities of a vaccine -- which is well within reach -- could be
delayed.

So this is not the time for politics. More than 40 U.S. servicemembers
have now contracted Zika overseas. In 50 U.S. states, we know of more
than 1,800 cases of Zika connected to travel to infected areas, and that
includes nearly 500 pregnant women. Zika is now present in almost every
part of Puerto Rico. And now we have the first local transmission in
Florida -- and there will certainly be more.

And meanwhile, Congress is on a summer recess. A lot of folks talk
about protecting Americans from threats. Well, Zika is a serious threat
to Americans, especially babies -- right now. So, once again, I want to
urge the American people to call their members of Congress and tell them
to do their job, deal with this threat, help protect the American people
from Zika.

With that, I'm going to take some questions. I'm going to start with
someone who just assumed the second-most powerful office in the land --
Jeff Mason -- the new Correspondents’ Association
president -- also from Reuters.

Jeff.

Question: Thank you, sir. Hardly powerful. And happy birthday.

President Obama: Thank you very much.

Question: As Islamic State loses territory, you and other officials have said
that it is becoming a more traditional terrorist group. Are you
satisfied that the United States and its allies have shifted strategy
sufficiently to address that change?

And secondly, given your comments this week about Donald Trump’s
volatility and lack of fitness to be President, are you concerned that
he will be receiving security briefings about ISIS and other sensitive
national security issues?

President Obama: I’m never satisfied with our response, because if you’re
satisfied that means the problem is solved, and it’s not. So we just
spent a couple hours meeting with my top national security folks to look
at what more can be done.

It is absolutely necessary for us to defeat ISIL in Iraq and Syria. It
is not sufficient, but it is necessary. Because so long as they have
those bases, they can use their propaganda to suggest that somehow
there’s still some caliphate being born, and that can insinuate itself
then in the minds of folks who may be willing to travel there or carry
out terrorist attacks. It’s also destabilizing for countries in the
region at a time when the region is already unstable.

So I am pleased with the progress that we’ve made on the ground in Iraq
and Syria. We’re far from freeing Mosul and Raqqa. But what we’ve
shown is, is that when it comes to conventional fights, ISIL can be
beaten with partners on the ground so long as they’ve got the support
from coalition forces that we’ve been providing.

In the meantime, though, you’re seeing ISIL carry out external terrorist
acts, and they’ve learned something they’ve adapted from al Qaeda, which
had a much more centralized operation and tried to plan very elaborate
attacks. And what ISIL has figured out is that if they can convince a
handful of people, or even one person, to carry out an attack on a
subway or at a parade or some other public venue and kill scores of
people, as opposed to thousands of people, it still creates the kinds of
fear and concern that elevates their profile.

So, in some ways, rooting out these networks for smaller, less
complicated attacks is tougher, because it doesn’t require as many
resources on their part or preparation. But it does mean that we’ve got
to do even more to generate the intelligence and to work with our
partners in order to degrade those networks.

And the fact is, is that those networks will probably sustain themselves
even after ISIL is defeated in Raqqa and Mosul. But what we’ve learned
from our efforts to defeat al Qaeda is that if we stay on it, our
intelligence gets better, and we adapt as well. And eventually, we will
dismantle these networks also.

This is part of the reason why, however, it is so important for us to
keep our eye on the ball and not panic, not succumb to fear. Because
ISIL can’t defeat the United States of America or our NATO partners. We
can defeat ourselves, though, if we make bad decisions. And we have to
understand that as painful and as tragic as these attacks are, that we
are going to keep on grinding away, preventing them wherever we can,
using a whole-of-government effort to knock down their propaganda, to
disrupt their networks, to take their key operatives off the
battlefield, and that eventually we will win.

But if we start making bad decisions -- indiscriminately killing
civilians, for example, in some of these areas, instituting offensive
religious tests on who can enter the country -- those kinds of
strategies can end up backfiring. Because in order for us to ultimately
win this fight, we cannot frame this as a clash of civilizations between
the West and Islam. That plays exactly into the hands of ISIL and the
perversions -- the perverse interpretations of Islam that they’re
putting forward.

As far as Mr. Trump, we are going to go by the law, which is that -- in
both tradition and the law -- that if somebody is the nominee, the
Republican nominee for President, they need to get a security briefing
so that if they were to win, they are not starting from scratch in terms
of being prepared for this office.

And I’m not going to go into details of the nature of the security
briefings that both candidates receive. What I will say is that they
have been told these are classified briefings. And if they want to be
President, they got to start acting like President, and that means being
able to receive these briefings and not spread them around.

Question: Are you worried about that?

President Obama: Well, I think I’ve said enough on that.

Mary Bruce.

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. What is your response to critics who say
the $400 million in cash that you sent to Iran was a ransom payment?
Was it really, simply a pure coincidence that a sum that was -- a
payment that was held up for almost four decades was suddenly sent at
the exact same time that the American prisoners were released? And can
you assure the American people that none of that money went to support
terrorism?

President Obama: Okay. It’s been interesting to watch this story
surface. Some of you may recall we announced these payments in January
-- many months ago. There wasn’t a secret. We announced them to all of
you. Josh did a briefing on them. This wasn’t some nefarious deal.
And at the time we explained that Iran had pressed a claim before an
international tribunal about them recovering money of theirs that we had
frozen; that, as a consequence of its working its way through the
international tribunal, it was the assessment of our lawyers that we
were now at a point where there was significant litigation risk and we
could end up costing ourselves billions of dollars. It was their advice
and suggestion that we settle. And that's what these payments
represent. And it wasn’t a secret. We were completely open with
everybody about it. And it’s interesting to me how suddenly this became
a story again. That's point number one.

Point number two, we do not pay ransom for hostages. We've got a number
of Americans being held all around the world. And I meet with their
families, and it is heartbreaking. And we have stood up an entire
section of interagency experts who devote all their time to working with
these families to get these Americans out.

But those families know that we have a policy that we don't pay ransom.
And the notion that we would somehow start now in this high-profile way
and announce it to the world -- even as we're looking into the faces of
other hostage families whose loved ones are being held hostage and say
to them that we don't pay ransom -- defies logic. So that's point
number two.

We do not pay ransom. We didn't here. And we don't -- we won’t in the
future -- precisely because if we did, then we would start encouraging
Americans to be targeted, much in the same way that some countries that
do pay ransom end up having a lot more of their citizens being taken by
various groups.

Point number three is that the timing of this was, in fact, dictated by
the fact that as a consequence of us negotiating around the nuclear
deal, we actually had diplomatic negotiations and conversations with
Iran for the first time in several decades. So the issue is not so much
that it was a coincidence as it is that we were able to have a direction
discussion.

John Kerry could meet with the foreign minister, which meant that our
ability to clear accounts on a number of different issues at the same
time converged. And it was important for us to take advantage of that
opportunity both to deal with this litigation risk that had been raised
-- it was important for us to make sure that we finished the job on the
Iran nuclear deal -- and since we were in a conversation with them, it
was important for us to be able to push them hard in getting these
Americans out.

And let me make a final point on this. It's now been well over a year
since the agreement with Iran to stop its nuclear program was signed.
And by all accounts, it has worked exactly the way we said it was going
to work. You will recall that there were all these horror stories about
how Iran was going to cheat, and this wasn't going to work, and Iran was
going to get $150 billion to finance terrorism and all these kinds of
scenarios. And none of them have come to pass.

And it's not just the assessment of our intelligence community. It's
the assessment of the Israeli military and intelligence community -- the
country that was most opposed to this deal -- that acknowledges this has
been a game-changer, and that Iran has abided by the deal, and that they
no longer have the sort of short-term breakout capacity that would allow
them to develop nuclear weapons.

So what I'm interested in is, if there's some news to be made, why not
have some of these folks who were predicting disaster say, you know
what, this thing actually worked? Now that would be a shock.
That would be impressive, if some of these folks who had
said the sky is falling suddenly said, you know what, we were wrong and
we are glad that Iran no longer has the capacity to break out in short
term and develop a nuclear weapon. But, of course, that wasn't going to
happen.

Instead, what we have is the manufacturing of outrage in a story that we
disclosed in January. And the only bit of news that is relevant on this
is the fact that we paid cash -- which brings me to my last point. The
reason that we had to give them cash is precisely because we are so
strict in maintaining sanctions and we do not have a banking
relationship with Iran that we couldn't send them a check and we could
not wire the money.

And it is not at all clear to me why it is that cash, as opposed to a
check or a wire transfer, has made this into a new story. Maybe because
it kind of feels like some spy novel or some crime novel because cash
was exchanged. The reason cash was exchanged is because we don't have a
banking relationship with Iran -- which is precisely part of the
pressure that we're able to apply to them so that they would ship a
whole bunch of nuclear material out and close down a bunch of facilities
that, as I remember, two years ago, three years ago, five years ago, was
people's top fear and priority that we make sure Iran doesn't have
breakout nuclear capacity. They don't. This worked.

Josh Lederman.

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. Repeatedly now, Donald Trump has said
that this election will be rigged against him, challenging really the
core foundation of our democratic system. Can you promise the American
people that this election will be conducted in a fair way? And are you
worried that comments like his could erode the public's faith in the
outcome of the election? And if he does win, given that you have just
declared him "unfit," what will you say to the American people?

President Obama: Well, at the end of the day, it's the American people's
decision. I have one vote. I have the same vote you do. I have the
vote that all the voters who are eligible all across the country have.
I've offered my opinion, but ultimately it's the American people's
decision to make collectively. And if somebody wins the election and
they are President, then my constitutional responsibility is to
peacefully transfer power to that individual and do everything I can to
help them succeed.

It is -- I don't even really know where to start on answering this
question. Of course the elections will not be rigged.
What does that mean? The federal government doesn't run
the election process. States and cities and communities all across the
country, they are the ones who set up the voting systems and the voting
booths. And if Mr. Trump is suggesting that there is a conspiracy
theory that is being propagated across the country, including in places
like Texas, where typically it's not Democrats who are in charge of
voting booths, that's ridiculous. That doesn't make any sense. And I
don't think anybody would take that seriously.

Now, we do take seriously -- as we always do -- our responsibilities to
monitor and preserve the integrity of the voting process. If we see
signs that a voting machine or system is vulnerable to hacking, then we
inform those local authorities who are running the elections that they
need to be careful. If we see jurisdictions that are violating federal
laws in terms of equal access and aren't providing ramps for disabled
voters, or are discriminating in some fashion, or are otherwise
violating civil rights laws, then the Justice Department will come in
and take care of that.

But this will be an election like every other election. And I think all
of us at some points in our lives have played sports or maybe just
played in a schoolyard or a sandbox. And sometimes folks, if they lose,
they start complaining that they got cheated. But I've never heard of
somebody complaining about being cheated before the game was over, or
before the score is even tallied. So my suggestion would be go out
there and try to win the election.

If Mr. Trump is up 10 or 15 points on Election Day and ends up losing,
then maybe he can raise some questions. That doesn’t seem to be the
case at the moment.

Barbara Starr.

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. On the question of ISIS expansion that
you've been talking about, because you see them expanding around the
world, because you see them trying to inspire attacks, what is your
current level of concern about the homeland? You talk about the
protection measures, but what is your assessment about the possibility
your own intelligence advisors suggest is possible about the direct ISIS
threat to Americans? And if I may follow up somewhat along the same
lines, what is your assessment today as you stand here about whether
Donald Trump can be trusted with America's nuclear weapons?

President Obama: On your second question -- and I'll sort of address this
to any additional Trump questions -- I would ask all of you to just make
your own judgment. I've made this point already multiple times. Just
listen to what Mr. Trump has to say and make your own judgment with
respect to how confident you feel about his ability to manage things
like our nuclear triad.

Question: With respect, sir, it suggests that you're not confident.

President Obama: Well, as I recall, I just answered a question about this
a couple days ago and I thought I made myself pretty clear. And I don’t
want to just keep on repeating it, or a variation on it. I obviously
have a very strong opinion about the two candidates who are running
here. One is very positive and one is not so much. And I think that
you will just hear -- any further questions that are directed at this
subject I think you'll hear pretty much variations on the same theme.

What I can say is that this is serious business. And the person who is
in the Oval Office and who our Secretary of Defense and our Joint Chiefs
of Staff and our outstanding men and women in uniform report to, they
are counting on somebody who has the temperament and good judgment to be
able to make decisions to keep America safe. And that should be very
much on the minds of voters when they go into the voting booth in
November.

In terms of the threat that ISIL poses to the homeland, I think it is
serious. We take it seriously. And as I said earlier, precisely
because they are less concerned about big, spectacular 9/11-style
attacks, because they've seen the degree of attention they can get with
smaller-scale attacks using small arms or assault rifles, or, in the
case of Nice, France, a truck, the possibility of either a lone actor or
a small cell carrying out an attack that kills people is real.

And that's why our intelligence and law enforcement and military
officials are working around the clock to try to anticipate potential
attacks, to obtain the threads of people who might be vulnerable to
brainwashing by ISIL. We are constrained here in the United States to
carry out this work in a way that's consistent with our laws and
presumptions of innocence. And the fact that we prevent a lot of these
attacks as effectively as we do, without a lot of fanfare and abiding by
our law, is a testament to the incredible work that these folks are
doing. They work really hard at it. But it is always a risk.

And some of you may have read the article in The New York Times today --
I guess it came out last night online -- about this individual in
Germany who had confessed and given himself up, and then explained his
knowledge of how ISIL’s networks worked. There was a paragraph in there
that some may have caught, which we don't know for a fact that this is
true, but according to this reporting, the individual indicated that
ISIL recognizes it’s harder to get its operatives into the United
States, but the fact that we have what he referred to as “open gun laws”
meant that anybody, as long as they didn't have a criminal record that
barred them from purchase, could go in and buy weapons -- that made sort
of a homegrown extremist strategy more attractive to them.
And those are the hardest to stop because, by definition, if somebody
doesn't have a record, if it’s not triggering something, it means that
anticipating their actions becomes that much more difficult.

And this is why the military strategy that we have in Syria and Iraq is
necessary, but it is not sufficient. We have to do a better job of
disrupting networks. And those networks are more active in Europe than
they are here. But we don't know what we don't know, and so it’s
conceivable that there are some networks here that could be activated.
But we also have to get to the messaging that can reach a troubled
individual over the Internet and do a better job of disrupting that.
And what I’ve told my team is that, although we've been working on this
now for five, six, seven years, we've got to put more resources into it.
This can't be an afterthought. It’s something that we have to really
focus on.

This is also why how we work with the Muslim American community, the
values that we affirm about their patriotism and their sacrifice and our
fellow feeling with them is so important. One of the reasons that we
don’t have networks and cells that are as active here as they are in
certain parts of Europe is because the Muslim American community in this
country is extraordinarily patriotic and largely successful, and fights
in our military, and serves as our doctors and our nurses, and there are
communities in which they are raising their kids with love of country
and a rejection of violence. And that has to be affirmed consistently.
And if we screw that up, then we’re going to have bigger problems.

Gregory Korte of USA Today.

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. Yesterday, you commuted the sentences of
214 federal inmates. It was the largest single-day grant of
commutations in the history of the American presidency. So I wanted to
ask you a couple of questions about your clemency thought process.

One is, you’ve talked about this as low-level drug offenders who got
mandatory minimum sentences, but about a quarter of the commutations
you’ve made also had firearms offenses. Given your overall philosophy
on firearms, can you reconcile that for us? And given that previously
in your presidency you had sent a memo to the Office of Pardon Attorney
saying there was sort of a predisposition against firearms to be granted
clemency, why did you change your mind on that?

Also, the other side of the ledger here is pardons. You’ve granted more
commutations than any President since Calvin Coolidge. You’ve granted
fewer pardons than any two-term President since John Adams. Why is
that? Is the focus on commutations taking energy away from pardons,
especially since these are -- you’ve talked about second chances; a full
pardon would give people a better chance at those second chances.

President Obama: Good.

Question: And then finally, just one other thing on pardons. Many of your
predecessors in the final days of their presidency have saved --
reserved that for their more politically sensitive pardons. Should we
expect you to do that? Or would you rule that out? Thanks.

President Obama: Okay. I appreciate the question, Gregory, because I
haven’t had a chance to talk about this much and this is an effort that
I’m really proud of.

It is my view, shared by Democrats and Republicans alike in many
quarters, that as successful as we’ve been in reducing crime in this
country, the extraordinary rate of incarceration of nonviolent offenders
has created its own set of problems that are devastating. Entire
communities have been ravaged where largely men, but some women, are
taken out of those communities. Kids are now growing up without
parents. It perpetuates a cycle of poverty and disorder in their lives.
It is disproportionately young men of color that are being arrested at
higher rates, charged and convicted at higher rates, and imprisoned for
longer sentences.

And so ultimately, the fix on this is criminal justice reform. And I
still hold out hope that the bipartisan effort that’s taking place in
Congress can finish the job and we can have a criminal justice system,
at least at the federal level, that is both smart on crime, effective on
crime, but recognizes the need for proportionality in sentencing and the
need to rehabilitate those who commit crimes.

But even as that slow process of criminal justice reform goes forward,
what I wanted to see is we could reinvigorate the pardon process and
commutation process that had become stalled over the course of several
years -- partly because it’s politically risky. You commute somebody
and they commit a crime, and the politics of it are tough. And
everybody remembers the Willie Horton ad.

And so the bias I think of my predecessors and, frankly, a number of my
advisors early in my presidency is, be careful about that. But I
thought it was very important for us to send a clear message that we
believe in the principles behind criminal justice reform even if
ultimately we need legislation.

So we have focused more on commutations than we have on pardons. I
would argue, Gregory, that by the time I leave office, the number of
pardons that we grant will be roughly in line with what other Presidents
have done. But standing up this commutations process has required a lot
of effort and a lot of energy, and it’s not like we got a new slug of
money to do it. So you’ve got limited resources. The primary job of
the Justice Department is to prevent crime and to convict those who have
committed crimes and to keep the American people safe. And that means
that you’ve had this extraordinary and Herculean effort by a lot of
people inside the Justice Department to go above and beyond what they’re
doing to also review these petitions that have been taking place. And
we’ve been able to get bar organizations around the country to
participate, to kind of screen and help people apply.

And what we -- the main criteria that I’ve tried to set is if under
today’s laws -- because there have been changes in how we charge
nonviolent drug offenses -- if under today’s charges, their sentences
would be substantially lower than the charges that they received, if
they got a life sentence but a U.S. attorney or the Justice Department
indicates that today they’d be likely to get 20 years and they’ve
already served 25, then what we try to do is to screen through and find
those individuals who have paid their debt to society, that have behaved
themselves and tried to reform themselves while incarcerated, and we
think have a good chance of being able to use that second chance well.

On the firearms issue, what I've done is to try to screen out folks who
seem to have a propensity for violence. And so -- and these are just
hypotheticals, but there may be a situation where a kid at 18 was a
member of a gang, had a firearm, did not use it in the offense that he
was charged in, there's no evidence that he used it in any violence
offense, it's still a firearms charge in enhancement, but he didn't use
it. He's now 48 -- or 38, 20 years later, and has a unblemished prison
record, has gone back to school, gotten his GED, has gone through drug
treatment, has the support of the original judge that presided, the
support of the U.S. attorney that charged him, support of the warden,
has a family that loves him. And in that situation, the fact that he
had 20 years early an enhancement because he had a firearm is different
than a situation where somebody has engaged in armed robbery and shot
somebody. In those cases, that is still something that I'm concerned
about.

Our focus really has been on people who we think were overcharged and
people who we do not believe have a propensity towards violence.

And in terms of your last question about sort of last-minute pardons
that are granted, the process that I put in place is not going to vary
depending on how close I get to the election. So it's going to be
reviewed by the pardon attorney, it will be reviewed by my White House
counsel, and I'm going to, as best as I can, make these decisions based
on the merits, as opposed to political considerations.

And finally, Jim Miklaszewski is retiring after 30 years at NBC. He has
done an outstanding job, mostly covering the Department of Defense.
This may be my last press conference here, so I just wanted to thank
Jim for the extraordinary career that he's had and the great job that
he's done. And he gets the last question.

Question: Thank you very much, Mr. President.

President Obama: You bet.

Question: First, back to ISIS and Iran and Syria. Your very own national
counterterrorism operation has found that despite all of the decisive
defeats that the U.S. and coalition have dealt ISIS on the battlefield,
that they've expanded their threat worldwide to include as many as 18
operational bases. In the six years you've been dealing, do you feel
any personal disappointment that there hasn't been more progress? And
in any discussions you've had with the U.S. military and your
intelligence agencies, have you come up with any new ideas on how to
deal or defeat ISIS?

President Obama: Every time there is a terrorist attack I feel
disappointment because I'd like to prevent all of them. And that's true
not just when the attacks are in Europe or in the United States. When
you read stories about attacks in Lebanon or Iraq or Afghanistan or
distant parts of the world that don't get as much attention, they get my
attention because that's somebody's kid and that's somebody's mom and
that's somebody who was just going about his business, and mindlessly,
senselessly, this person was murdered.

So I haven't gotten numb to it. It bugs me whenever it happens and
wherever it happens. And we are constantly pushing ourselves to see are
there additional ideas that we can deploy to defeat this threat.

Now, it is important that we recognize terrorism as a tactic has been
around for a long time. And if you look at the '70s or the '80s or the
'90s, there was some terrorist activity somewhere in the world that was
brutal. And as much as I would like to say that during my eight-year
presidency we could have eliminated terrorism completely, it's not
surprising that that hasn't happened and I don't expect that will happen
under the watch of my successors.

I do think that because of our extraordinary efforts, the homeland is
significantly safer than it otherwise would be. Now, in some ways this
is arguing the counterfactuals, but the attacks we prevent I take great
satisfaction in, and I am grateful for the extraordinary work that our
teams do. I don't think there's any doubt that had we not destroyed al
Qaeda in the FATA that more Americans would have been killed, and we
might have seen more attacks like we saw on 9/11. And we have
maintained vigilance, recognizing that those threats still remain, those
aspirations in the minds of these folks still remain, but it is much
harder for them to carry out large-scale attacks like that than it used
to be.

What we have seen is that these lower-level attacks carried out by fewer
operatives or an individual with less sophisticated and less expensive
weapons can do real damage. And that, I think, points to the need for
us to not just have a military strategy, not just have a traditional
counterterrorism strategy that's designed to bust up networks and catch
folks before they carry out their attacks -- although those still are
necessary, and we have to be more and more sophisticated about how we
carry those out, it still requires us to have much greater cooperation
with our partners around the world -- but it points to the fact that
we're going to have to do a better job in draining the ideology that is
behind these attacks, that right now is emanating largely out of the
Middle East and a very small fraction of the Muslim world a perversion
of Islam that has taken root and has been turbocharged over the
Internet, and that is appealing to even folks who don’t necessarily know
anything about Islam and aren’t even practicing Islam in any serious
way, but have all kinds of psychosis and latch on to this as some way of
being important and magnifying themselves.

And that's tougher because that involves both changes in geopolitics in
places like Syria. It requires cultural changes in regions like the
Middle East and North Africa that are going through generational changes
and shifts as the old order collapses. It requires psychology and
thinking about how do these messages of hate reach individuals and are
there ways in which we can intervene ahead of time. And all that work
is being done. And we've got the very best people at it, and each day
they're making a difference in saving lives -- not just here, but around
the world.

But it's a challenge precisely because if you're successful 99 percent
of the time, that 1 percent can still mean heartbreak for families. And
it's difficult because in a country, let's say, of 300 million people
here in the United States, if 99.9 percent of people are immune from
this hateful ideology but one-tenth of 1 percent are susceptible to it,
that's a lot of dangerous people running around. And we can't always
anticipate them ahead of time because they may not have criminal
records. So this is going to be a challenge.

I just want to end on the point that I made earlier. How we react to
this is as important as the efforts we take to destroy ISIL, prevent
these networks from penetrating. You can't separate those two things
out. The reason it's called terrorism, as opposed to just a standard
war, is that these are weak enemies that can't match us in conventional
power, but what they can do is make us scared. And when societies get
scared, they can react in ways that undermine the fabric of our society.
It makes us weaker and makes us more vulnerable, and creates politics
that divide us in ways that hurt us over the long term.

And so if we remain steady and steadfast and vigilant, but also take the
long view and maintain perspective and remind ourselves of who we are
and what we care about most deeply, and what we cherish and what's good
about this country, and what's good about the international order and
civilization that was built in part because of the sacrifices of our men
and women after a 20th century full of world war -- if we remember that,
then we're going to be okay. But we're still going to see,
episodically, these kinds of tragedies, and we're going to have to keep
working on until we make things better.

Question: If I may, Mr.
President --

President Obama: You may only because this is your retirement.

Question: I was hoping you'd --

President Obama: But I hope it's not too long because --

Question: No, no --

President Obama: -- I'm going to be
late for my birthday dinner.

Question:
You alluded earlier to the negotiations between the U.S. and Russia
over some military-to-military cooperation in Syria against some of the
militant forces there, presumably in exchange for whatever Russian
influence could be imposed on the Assad regime for a variety of reasons.
Now, I’m sure you're not surprised that some in the military are not
supportive of that deal. Some European allies think it would be a deal
with the devil. What makes you so confident that you can trust the
Russians and Vladimir Putin?

President Obama: I’m not confident that we can trust the Russians and
Vladimir Putin, which is why we have to test whether or not we can get
an actual Cessation of Hostilities that includes an end to the kinds of
aerial bombing and civilian death and destruction that we've seen
carried out by the Assad regime. And Russia may not be able to get
there either because they don't want to or because they don't have
sufficient influence over Assad. And that's what we're going to test.

So we go into this without any blinders on. We're very clear that
Russia has been willing to support a murderous regime and an individual,
in Assad, who has destroyed his country just to cling on to power. What
started with peaceful protests has led to a shattering of an entire
pretty advanced society. And so whenever you're trying to broker any
kind of deal with an individual like that, or a country like that, you
got to go in there with some skepticism.

On the other hand, if we are able to get a genuine Cessation of
Hostilities that prevents indiscriminate bombing, that protects
civilians, that allows humanitarian access and creates some sort of
pathway to begin the hard work of political negotiations inside of
Syria, then we have to try -- because the alternative is a perpetuation
of civil war.

I’ve been wrestling with this now for a lot of years. I am pretty
confident that a big chunk of my gray hair comes out of my Syria
meetings. And there is not a meeting that I don't end by saying is
there something else we could be doing that we haven’t thought of. Is
there a plan F, G, H that we think would lead to a resolution of this
issue so that the Syrian people can put their lives back together and we
can bring peace and relieve the refugee crisis that's taken place. And
the options are limited when you have a civil war like this, when you
have a ruler who doesn't care about his people, when you've got
terrorist organizations that are brutal and would impose their own kind
of dictatorship on people, and you have a moderate opposition and
ordinary civilians who are often outgunned and outmanned. And that's a
very difficult situation to deal with. But we've got to give it a
chance.

There are going to be some bottom lines that we expect for us to
cooperate with Russia beyond the sort of de-confliction that we're
currently doing. And that means restraint on the part of the regime
that so far has not been forthcoming.

Early on in this version of the Cessation of Hostilities, we probably
saw some lives saved and some lessening of violence. The violations of
this cessation have grown to the point where it just barely exists,
particularly up in the northwestern part of the country. So we're going
to test and see if we can get something that sticks. And if not, then
Russia will have shown itself very clearly to be an irresponsible actor
on the world stage that is supporting a murderous regime and will have
to answer to that on the international stage.